**5.2. Walter Charleton**

Charleton14 was the son of a church rector of modest means. He was educated at Oxford as a physician at that time when medical education in England emphasized scholastic approaches to knowledge and British colleges had inadequate anatomical staff and teaching facilities. The practical elements of practicing medicine were not acquired until after assisting a more experienced practicing medical doctor.

<sup>13</sup> *b*. 15 September 1603, Szamotuly, Poland; *d*. 8 June 1675, Legnica, Poland.

<sup>14</sup> *b.* 2 February 1619, Shepton Mallet, Somerset, England; *d.* 24 April 1707, London, England.

Charleton was a follower of epicurean atomism (materialism) (Kargon 1964) and an eclectic (Lewis 2001), whose interest in natural history was more or less theological because, as he said, men were obligated into "naming & looking into the nature of all Creatures" (Boot 2005, p. 119). In other words, just as Ray and Willoughby did later, natural science was the search a divine pattern in nature, part of the research agenda of the Royal Society – to which Charleton belonged (Rolleston 1940, Sharpe 1973). His publications showed him more as a compiler than as an innovator. His major contribution to science was the discovery that tadpoles turn into frogs (Booth 2005, p. 1).

When Whales Became Mammals:

The Scientific Journey of Cetaceans From Fish to Mammals in the History of Science 19

difference from them seems to be in the external shape, and wanting feet. But here too we observed that when the skin and flesh was taken off, the forefins did very well represent an Arm, there being the *Scapula*, an of *Humeri*, the *Ulna*, and *Radius*, and bone of the *Carpus*, the *Metacarp*, and 5 *digiti* curiously joynted. The Tayle too does very well supply the defect of feet both in swimming as also leaping in the water, as if both hinder feet were colligated into

Tyson's description of the internal anatomy of the porpoise is remarkable, particularly when it comes to its nervous system (Kruger 2003). In many ways he thought that the "porpess"

In his monograph Tyson surveyed contributions from previous authors. He corresponded with John Ray (see below). Ray had also dissected a porpoise (an exercise on which he reported in a published form in 1671), nine years before Tyson but was far more superficial and added very little to what other authors such as Rondelet had done. Tyson met Ray around 1683 and the latter invited Tyson to contribute to Willughby's *De Historia Piscium*

Tyson was critical of encyclopedic approaches and relying on classical authors when it came to natural history. He set new standards in terms of direct observation and comparative anatomy. He also established an understanding of homology not seen since Aristotle. He proved to be a very competent observer of internal anatomy and he saw comparative anatomy as a means to explain the Great Chain of Being (or *scala naturae* or ladder of nature)

A contemporary of Tyson was Samuel Collins16. The son of the rector of Rotherfield, Sussex, who got his education at Cambridge, Collins travelled to several universities in France, Italy and the Netherlands finally getting his medical degree at the University of Padua, later becoming physician of Charles II. He taught anatomy at the Royal College of Physicians17. Collins published *A Systeme of Anatomy* (London 1685), which was the earliest attempts to illustrate the brains of a broad variety of mammals, birds, teleosts, and elasmobranchs in a remarkable two-volume folio edition of 1,263 pages. It included 73 full-page illustrations of very high quality. There he described a female porpoise. However, it seems that he had used Tyson's previous descriptions and unfortunately says nothing about the brain of this cetacean. Had he had examined the brain of the porpoise he would have noted the great similarities of this organ with those among the "viviparous quadrupeds." Collins did not discuss the similarities between the other internal organs of the porpoise and those called mammals today either. He acknowledged Tyson' previous contributions in this matter.

<sup>16</sup> *b*. 1618, Rotherfield, Sussex, England; *d*. 11 April 1710, Westminster, Middlesex, England.

17 Biographical information obtained from: http://munksroll.rcplondon.ac.uk/Biography/Details/950 and

one, though it consisted not of articulated bones but rather Tendons and Cartilages."

was the transitional link between terrestrial mammals and fish.

(Montagu 1943, p. 103).

**5.4. Samuel Collins** 

accessed on 2 April 2012.

as proposed by Plato and Aristotle.

He published two books dealing with animal classification: *Onomasticon zoicon* (1668) and *Exercitationes de Differentiis & Nominibus Animalium* (1677) works that listed the names of all known animals (including some fossils) in the western world in several languages with a somewhat taxonomy discussion, including remarks about these animals habits and habitats that contained anatomical descriptions of two animals that he had dissected. As Belon did over a century before, he divided "fishes" as either "with blood" (vertebrates) and "without blood" (invertebrates). He grouped under "Cetaceos" not only actual cetaceans but also the sawfish, seals, walruses, manatees, hippopotamus and the mythical "scolopendra cetacea." The actual cetaceans described were *Balaena vulgaris* (probably the right whale), *Physeter, & Physalus* (probably the fin whale but also other species), *Cetus dentatus* (the sperm whale), *Pustes* (indeterminate species, maybe the beluga), *Orca* (the killer whale), *Monoceros* (the narwhal), *Delphinus* (probably a composite of delphinidae), and *Phocaena* (the porpoise).
